


Show Me the One I Need

by Moonlight Masquerade (IllusiveDream), reapersbarge



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Draco Malfoy Needs a Hug, Harry Potter Needs a Hug, Healing, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-10-17 15:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20623490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IllusiveDream/pseuds/Moonlight%20Masquerade, https://archiveofourown.org/users/reapersbarge/pseuds/reapersbarge
Summary: The frantic pounding of the heart under his hand, stuttering from his shaking sobs, saidwe’re alive we’re alive we’re alive.





	Show Me the One I Need

Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived. Who had miraculously survived the Killing Curse yet again. Who was being lauded as a hero by a country who had turned their backs on him. Who was being paraded on stage and forced to smile at people when all he wanted to do was blend into the background. 

Kingsley had offered him and Ron a place in the Auror Corps. Harry had said no. He'd had enough fighting to last him his whole life. The wizarding world could bloody well defend themselves; he wasn't prophesied to save them from criminals. 

He just wanted to have the one thing he'd been denied for years: a normal life. 

Starting with a regular year at Hogwarts. 

\---

He was lucky they hadn’t sent him to Azkaban. That was the sentiment Draco Malfoy heard over and over again. On Diagon when he purchased his school supplies. On the platform before he boarded the train. In whispers at the Welcome Feast. He’d better keep his nose clean or they’d send him through the Veil. 

Those in green ties huddled closer together than ever before. Strength in numbers.

Draco was content to coast by unnoticed, as well as he could: inconspicuous, despite his blackened name and pale hair. 

Bloody Saint Potter decided he couldn’t even have that. 

\---

They all stared at him. 

And they whispered. 

Throughout the Welcoming Feast, as he made his way through the corridors, as he sat in class. 

It wasn't the end of the first week and he was already sick of it. 

He'd been leaving Potions - still a strange experience without Snape around - when the second years came for their class, huddled together and glancing around nervously. 

"Professor Slughorn won't bite," he said, trying to lighten the mood. 

Someone mumbled something about Carrows and dungeons and Death Eaters. 

"They're all dead, or in Azkaban, where they belong," he told them reassuringly. Not that they seemed to be listening, or even looking at him. "And I killed Voldemort. There's nothing to fear."

"No they're not!" a tiny Hufflepuff burst out, pointing behind Harry. 

And that was when he turned around and saw the skinny blond who had just emerged from the Slytherin common room. 

\---

Hufflepuffs should be locked away in their cozy common room so that they don’t traumatize themselves by the sight of their own shadows.

Draco kept his eyes straight and his shoulders loose. No use letting anyone see that the little girl’s tears made him want to bolt; or that they reminded him of himself shaking in his mother’s arms last year.

He adjusted his sleeves, quietly ensuring his wand remained in its holster. Of course, the feeling of the once-treasured piece of hawthorn only reminded him that Scarhead had wielded it for a time. Can’t even use his wand without being aware of Potter’s continued existence. 

Idiot. 

Their chosen savior comforted the snivelling little Hufflepuff as she wailed into his shirt. Potter, for all the fame and glory he had been given following the end of the war, looked just as haunted as the rest of them. Dark shadows bruised the hollows of his eyes. The dark mop he called hair reached past his ears now, longer than Draco had ever seen it. Still untidy, as Potter always was, but changed. He looked more “battle weary soldier” than “idiot golden lamb”. 

As Draco passed Saint Potter and his flock of snotting badgers, he couldn’t resist opening his mouth, a tired echo of his usual smirk on his face.

“Alright, Potter?”

He knew it would bother the idiot for days.

\---

There were too many expectations in Hogwarts. 

Children expecting him to be the Saviour of the Wizarding World like they imagined. 

Students expecting him to tell them about his time hunting for the horcruxes. 

Professors expecting him to set a good example. 

Ginny expecting him to want her. 

Expectations were the reason why Harry was out on the Quidditch pitch in winter after curfew, firewhiskey in hand. 

What was he supposed to do? Pretend that he liked Ginny, when after everything she just seemed… too much for him to handle? Pretend that he was grown up instead of just being another teenager? Pretend that it had all been a great adventure? Pretend that he was a hero? 

They didn't want to hear about the nightmares, or the scars, or the way he checked the exits, or waking up with his forehead aching. They didn't want to hear that their parents were cowards and hypocrites and failures. They didn't want to hear that Voldemort hadn't been unique, that he'd just exploited the cracks and discrimination in their society. 

They wanted to live in their own happy little world of lies. They wanted to ignore the truth. 

And when he walked out here, drunk, the frosty air harsh on his face, screaming his sorrows into the bitter wind, he could ignore the truth, too. 

But he wasn’t alone out here tonight. Someone was singing. Badly. And the sound got closer and louder the longer he kept walking. 

\---

“_O ye'll tak' the high road, and I'll tak' the low road _ .” Hiccup. “ _ And I'll be in Scotland a'fore ye _.”

When Draco drank and was upset (which was every time he drank), he sang Flint’s depressing Scottish songs. He’d never asked where the London native picked them up, but he wasn’t sure he cared about the answer enough to put in the effort. 

“_'Twas there that we parted, in yon shady glen _.” He spilled his whisky. “Fucking hell.”

“Your accent is god awful, Malfoy.” Sainted Potter had come to bless him with his presence. 

Given Potter’s face, Draco may have said that aloud. 

Their Chosen One sat himself down beside the drunk blond. Draco was sprawled on the grass, legs thrown out, burned out cigarette dangling from his fingers. Potter said nothing; he just drank from his own bottle and stared up at the cloud-covered sky. 

“I hate it,” said Potter without preamble. Draco stopped his humming. He looked at the other man, like he hadn’t spent the majority of the last few months cataloguing every change on his face. “Everyone thinks I’m supposed to be happy.”

“If that’s the face of a happy man, Potter, you need to get laid.”

Potter laughed. Surprise flickered across his face, as if the sound caught him off guard. He let himself fall back until he lay next to Draco in the grass. Once his giggling died out, Potter turned to look at Draco.

“You’re holding up much better than I first imagined.”

Draco snorted and took another sip from the bottle in his hands. “Yes, Potter, I’m holding up so well. I’m drunk on a Tuesday night with my mortal enemy.” 

“It’s technically Wednesday morning,” Potter retorted. “I thought all that premium pureblood education would have ensured you’d be able to tell the time.” 

The mention of Draco’s blood status set something off in the back of his mind. _ Pureblood, Mudblood, blood traitor _. What fucking difference did any of it make after all the death? What did his pure blood have to do with anything anymore? It was just another target, another label pinned to him. 

He swung his arm over, reaching to knock into Potter’s jaw. The bottle of firewhisky fell from his chest and spilled into the grass.

Draco missed. And landed himself half on top of the idiot. 

They were both about as skinny as a broom handle, so it wasn’t the most comfortable position he’d ever been in, but Draco didn’t move. The infernal clouds dissipated and he could swear he saw the constellations reflected in Potter’s eyes. The other boy didn’t flinch away either and the pair of them were stuck in a seemingly endless game of chicken. 

Harry reached up to tug at the hair falling in Draco’s eyes. 

“You cut it.” It wasn’t a question.

“I couldn’t look in the mirror anymore.” Perhaps the most honest thing he had said all week.

“I like it.” The small smile on Potter’s lips was a joke Draco only half understood. 

But he wanted to see more of it. Wanted to know what that joke felt like against his own mouth.

Draco rested his forehead against Harry’s and let himself get lost in the green turned grey by the night. He wouldn’t move first. Let Potter be the brave one. Draco’d had enough of strength. Another person flinching away, _ this _person flinching away, might just break him entirely. 

Potter’s hand was still in his hair. He used his grip to pull Draco’s mouth down to his. 

Something close to a sob tried to claw its way from the Malfoy heir’s throat. _ Finally_. 

Messy and aggressive, both trying to fit themselves into the other’s skin. A broken match lit and it felt like if they stopped kissing, moved on to the next moment, it would be snuffed out. Harry’s hands on the back of his neck felt less like sweet longing and more like grief. Breaths intertwined, Draco’s mouth leaving a bite on Potter’s jaw: he’d never felt more sober or awake.

He wasn’t sure who’d started to cry first. One moment, Draco was focused on pulling at the hem of Harry’s sweater. The next, he put his head down in the crook of the smaller boy’s neck and let himself _ feel _ . Draco’s hand reached up to grasp at the fabric covering Harry’s heart. The frantic pounding, stuttering from his shaking sobs, said _ we’re alive we’re alive we’re alive_.

The pair quieted, sudden silence breaking through like an explosion.

“Okay,” said Harry. He wrapped his arms around the blond. 

“Okay,” echoed Draco. He tightened his hold on the fabric of Harry’s sweater.

A kiss pressed onto Draco’s forehead.

“I do like the haircut.”

\---

“You’re not wearing that to our wedding, Potter.”

“It’ll be Potter-Malfoy in a month’s time, thank you very much.”

\---

“Granger as our surrogate? Merlin, the hair that poor kid is going to have. It’s going to clash with his green tie.”

“He’ll sort Gryffindor.” 

“He’ll sort Slytherin and I won’t hear anything different, Scarhead.”

\---

Twenty years after the Quidditch Pitch, Sirius Severus Potter-Malfoy was sorted into Hufflepuff. Both of the godfathers he was named for rolled in their graves.

**Author's Note:**

> A collaboration between me and the lovely sulisaints!!! She wrote Draco's POV and I wrote Harry's. Please read and comment!


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